Welcome to the Mastering Midlife podcast where we talk about all the crazy fun things that happen when you are a midlife mama. I'm your host, Heather London. Let's dig in.
I was out on my walk today and I was thinking, what am I going to talk about on my podcast today? What's something that I'm passionate about that's really important? And usually what I... ask myself is what do midlife women need to hear right now and that's what I decide to make my podcast about in the moment and what I found was the most important thing in midlife
is health. This is just what I was thinking today because I was on my walk. But there's something called that I like to call the wheel of life. And you want to visualize a wheel with spokes. You can see the wheel. It's on a bicycle, maybe. And it goes around because it's a perfect wheel. And the wheel is made up of all the different compartments. And in life... The wheel of life is made up of the compartments of money, career, happiness, spirituality, relationships.
health. Those are like the main big ones, the big players. And wherever you put your attention on, it grows and it will do well. But then when you do that, it means you're taking your attention off of something else and then that will shrink. So say, for example, you're doing really well in your career. You're getting the raises and you're working the hours, but it means you're not there.
for your partner as much you can't go out on date night and you come home late and you're tired and so you can see like one is doing really well your career Oh, and then your money will be doing well. So there's a couple that are doing well, but then your relationship kind of takes a nosedive. The key is that you really want to try to be giving all of those areas.
a little bit of your love and attention all the time so they all stay even so if if the scale is zero to ten It might be really hard right now for them to all be 10s, but maybe they could all be 7s.
opposed to a ten over here and a two over there maybe we can make them all sevens and then your wheel is round and it's way easier to ride the bicycle and it's more enjoyable when the wheel is round and it's a nice smooth ride and there's a whole other wheel for each of those categories there's a wheel within a wheel life is complex like that And I was thinking about when I was out on my walk, I was thinking about the health wheel.
Of course, that's what I'm going to be thinking about when I'm walking. I think about all the things when I walk and I used to run. And when I was a runner, I would solve all of my problems. I would come up with my best ideas. And then you hit midlife and somewhere in midlife, somewhere in there, it's different for everybody.
maybe running isn't a thing for you anymore my running days ended a long time ago because of my knee but maybe you're just at the stage where your knees are telling you maybe you want to rethink this maybe you want to take up pickleball or bike riding something that's easier on your joints because finally your body is like this is a little bit too much for us now
you know, like if you're listening to your body's cues, your body is always sending you cues. So if you're listening to your body's cues, you may be thinking, okay, I need to take up a different activity that is kinder on my body or that my body likes.
better and that's where this whole health wheel came up is it in midlife your wheel changes there for health there's different sections too for your just your general health you have the other sprockets and sections there's your mental health your emotional health your spiritual health and your physical health and how do you keep that wheel round
and it's just like a wheel inside a wheel it's never ending but it's just a great way to check in and see where you're putting your attention and what number everything is at so you can see how you're doing you can foresee issues if you're always checking in on your wheel and be like oh that's at a two then you know something's about to go down
And if it's the relationship, it's like, okay, there's going to be problems headed my way because it's at a two. I can see it coming. It's not going to be a surprise. And if I want to avoid those problems, then guess what I do? I put more attention there. And I try to pump it up a little bit.
So how do you keep the wheel round? If you can keep the wheel round, you're laughing. Remember, it doesn't have to be a 10, a 10 round wheel. It can be a six round wheel or even a five round wheel. That's okay too because it's round. before women used to come to me for weight loss. That was the thing because of what I did. I was a personal trainer. I had my own gym, mom and baby fitness, all that kind of fun stuff.
And it was like, I got to lose the weight. And after the baby, that made sense. But then I would get women who had had their babies who are older now. And they're like, I still got to lose the baby weight. They would say that. And we would laugh because my baby's 10. It's always a thing for women, women and weight. It's always a thing. And especially in today's society, because our food isn't food anymore. Our food has been.
created manufactured in a lab just to make it more addictive to make it sweeter and tastier so that we just want to eat more and all the food industry is worried about is selling more of their product and that's it they're not worried about your health and when we eat food we should be eating for health we want to be getting the nutrients into our body that's the only reason that food is necessary
is to keep us alive but today in the in the era of convenience and abundance it's just so easy to lose sight of the whole purpose of food in the first place and the fact that the food that we do eat that's clean has way less nutrients because of our soil. When we're thinking about this, we got to be really mindful of why we're eating and what we're eating. And now, women who come to me for overall health,
But weight is certainly one of the reasons because there's the hormonal, the mental, the mental belly when you hit menopause and the hormones shift. And then your body is designed to store that. fat in your stomach abdomen area but it's a different kind of fat before it's like butt and thighs for childbirth and now we're storing it in the stomach
And we want to get rid of that fat. We don't want it. But this is a hormonal shift. The best thing you could ever possibly do, you know, if you listen to my podcast. is try to balance out your hormones, get your body into homeostasis so your body can naturally balance out its hormones as speedily and gracefully as possible.
So your body's going to balance itself out. That's what it's designed to do. And the healthier you eat, the healthier you are, the easier it is for your body to sort itself out. So now I find midlife women are coming to me more for overall health and wellness. And so I wanted to address the physical, the health aspect of it. Because as I see my parents aging, oh my gosh, I realize how important physical health is.
to quality of life and longevity. My parents have always been active. They've always been super healthy, my dad. Does all of the yard work. He does the lawn mowing and he goes golfing and he used to play pickleball and he goes walking and bike riding. And my mom gardens and she goes swimming every other day. And they're 85 and 82. They got it going on. But recently, even though they're healthy and active, their physical bodies have taken a big change, a really big change.
physically harder for them to do the things that they used to just do to live and stay in shape and now they have to adapt that or they get to adapt that and it if you have the mindset of I'm going to adapt, then you can make it easier. But if you have the mindset of like, oh, I got to be like I was five years ago. No bueno. It's going to be so hard. So hard.
like for example me and my knee if my mindset was like oh I have to be able to do what I did before you know my knee became full of arthritis then i'm just going to be like losing every time i try but if i'm like what can i do what's easier what's better for my knee then i'm going to be winning I'm going to be winning because I'm looking for a solution. I'm not living in the past of who I used to be or what my body used to be able to do.
And when I see my parents, I'm like, yeah, this is a reminder of how important physical health is. They have a huge garden and they love their garden and it keeps them so healthy. My mom and dad are so strong because they get out there and they work in the garden and do those things. And that's why they're living such a great life at this age. That's why it's so important. You don't just want to have a long life. You want to have a good life.
That's the blue zones where people live, the most amount of people live as centurions into their hundreds, but the healthiest. Because you don't want to be... A 90 year old person stuck in a nursing home where somebody has to take you out of your bed every day. Like, come on, we do not want that for ourselves. I heard a stat the other day. It really caught my attention. The people that live the longest and are the healthiest are the ones that have good leg strength. What?
Like this all makes sense, but I never really thought about it. Why is that? Because when they have strong legs, they're able to go out and do things and meet with other people. They have the social life. They can go out. They have independence. And we are social creatures. We want to fit in with the group because back in the day, if we didn't fit in, we would die. So it's very important to us that we fit in and we need to be social.
So think about that. Oh my gosh. Like you're going to live longer if you have strong legs because then you can take yourself out to go to meet and hang out with other people and do things. I love this for us.
I was just damn and for me like I play I grew up playing soccer so I have soccer legs and for me it's so easy to build my leg muscle just just genetics and soccer and all that kind of thing so I love having strong legs but I haven't been working out my legs because of my knee squats those things they just don't exist for me because I can't bend my knee like that. But I know ways around it. I know ways that I can.
strengthen my legs so I've really just I've used it as an excuse like I'm gonna come clean ladies I'm gonna be honest I've used it as excuse to not do leg day I never did leg day because my legs were always strong but as I get older I see the muscle just slowly disappearing into the abyss and I'm like oh what where did these big leg muscles go so we have to stay on it
So I'm here to inspire you. I don't want to scare you. I want to inspire you. It's like, all you got to do is strengthen those legs. And it's so easy to do. I wanted to share with you my checklist of the top five things. Do I have five? Yeah, I think I have five that I do daily for my physical health and longevity. And they're non-negotiable. So when it's non-negotiable, it means it's super easy to do even on my worst day.
If I'm going to make it non-negotiable, it has to be doable. Like five, ten minutes. I could do something that takes five or ten minutes every day. When I think out to my future self, my 80-year-old self, she's going to be thanking me for doing this every day. She's going to be like, girl, thanks for doing those jump squats every day. I appreciate you now as I'm, you know, still playing tennis, playing pickleball, whatever it is. It doesn't matter, but this is what we want to do.
is for our future self. We want to show up today every single day for our future selves. So here are the top five things that I do daily for my physical health and longevity, and they are non-negotiable. I move my body for 30 minutes every day, whatever that looks like. It doesn't have to be intense. Like it's just moving your body. That's all it is. Walking, number one on my list.
And I time my walks for specific reasons around when I eat and building muscle and all that kind of stuff. I'm very, I'm very intentional with when I do my walks. but move my body for 30 minutes. I have a stationary bike. It could be that. It could be playing tennis. It could be swimming. It could be playing pickleball. Yoga. It doesn't matter. Just move your body for 30 minutes. And then strength training.
strength training is huge in midlife we got to build these muscles because they will we will lose our muscles and we want to make sure that we stay strong so we have the ability to take ourselves where we want to go and meet the people we want to meet and my strength training and I hate strength training but I have my weights they're right there by my desk right here and every day I just hammer out 10 reps
is not pretty and i because i hate strengthening but i'm going to do it because my 80 year old self is going to be like thank you for taking 10 minutes to build some muscle i appreciate that and my strength training it also always always includes core one of my I think the strongest area of my body besides
my legs i don't know if my legs are because i don't work them but they're going to be but my core my core has always been the strongest because i'm always working my core even if i'm not doing core exercises i'm always working my core with my kegels my belly button in and up and every time i go to do something
I engage my core and then I do it. So that's a core workout. No matter what I'm doing, I'm aware of my core. My dad, he loves to show me his workout routine. So I was watching his workout routine and he's got a really good workout routine. And these are all just functional exercises that he does so that he can walk and play golf and all that kind of stuff. But you know what he didn't have in their core. He had zero core exercises.
And so I had to lecture him on, Dad, every movement you make includes your core. And so when he was doing all of these things, he was missing out on so much power and strength because he wasn't using his core. And even his golf swing, I'm like... Dude, how do you even golf if you don't use your core?
What are you thinking? So I showed him the basic core exercises that he would gladly add in because the ROI, the return on investment is huge. Always invest in your core. Always, always, always. If you do nothing else.
core exercises five minutes core exercises every single day and you are going to be winning hard because oh it's going to get you where you want to go and then i've added this in recently because i've noticed that hey I'm in midlife and I need to be doing some jump training and even with a bad knee where I shouldn't be jumping I just add in jump training which is
I do 10 jumps. I try to do 10 jumps on the hour. That's it. That's it. Like just 10 jumps just to get that impact to help keep my bones strong. Because we don't want to get weak bones. We don't want to break our bones. We don't want osteoporosis. The number one thing that kind of takes us out as midlife women or as we get into the later stages of life.
are the weak bones we fall we break a bone and then it's game over we can't recover from it so the mission is to not fall it's to not break a bone it's to stay strong it's to stay on our feet it's to have good balance and the way you do that is by jump training and having a strong core and doing leg training and intentionally doing functional balancing. And then you good, you're not going to fall over, girl.
And if you do, you know how to fall and you're going to be okay. Even when I was taking my training, my personal training certs, like so 20 years ago, a hundred years ago, I don't know. There was a section on, you know, seniors and fall prevention. And I did not get it. I'm going to be honest. I didn't get it at the time. It's like, just don't fall over. Right. But I didn't realize what happens to your body as you get older.
And that it's, you got to put time and effort into it so that you don't fall over. And it is a thing. And if you do fall, how do you fall so that you do no damage? It's just a whole. thing and I'm just flashing as I'm talking about this I'm flashing to my future because I always create a business and coach people on what I'm going through and experiencing like midlife and menopause where there isn't enough for people and when it was
like pre and postnatal fitness where there was nothing for people. And so I create that and I flash forward to me, you know, my seventies and eighties, this is what I'm going to be teaching people. I know. I know. I just saw it. I just saw a future glimpse of my future. I love it. I love it. And you're all going to be going with me because you're here because you came and worked out with me when you were pregnant and had your children.
And now guess what? You're in midlife. And then guess what? You're going to be old. So I'm going to be there with you through the whole journey. We are going to do this together and we're going to meet up when we're super old and we can't do anything else. And we're going to do those fun workouts that we did with our babies, the way you guys all met and became friends. We're going to do that again.
I can't wait. Oh my gosh, that was just such a cool flash forward. Okay, so let's get back to my list. So jump training. And my latest is functional leg training. So that's like... jump squats where you tap your butt to a seat and jump up.
Right. That's now instead of just my jump training was literally just jumping up and down to get the impact of the bones to keep my bones strong. But now I'm going to add in jump squats where I tap my booty to a chair and then jump up and back down. This is to help you. get up and down but also to build the leg strength to keep you stable and going i would include also biking because that is great leg strength with no impact on the joints
Walking heels. I always walk heels because it's good for working the booty and the calf, like keeping your leg muscles super strong. Tennis because it's good mobility left and right. So that's wonderful as well. Also lunges adding, I'm going to be adding lunges in there. And if you have bad knees like me, do a reverse lunge because then the weight transfers to the back and there's less pressure on the knee.
and only go as as low as you can stay out of any range of pain but work those legs sister work those legs leg day we are now obsessed officially obsessed with leg day and then of course nutrition that would always be at the top of the list but your physical health.
It's nutrition. You don't want to be fighting your body. You want your nutrition to enhance your muscle and your strength. It's just like they are BFFs. You can't have one without the other. And the more focused and knowledgeable you are about your nutrition, the easier the other. one will be. So please, nutrition, nutrition, nutrition.
And we work on all of this in my Mastering Midlife membership club. So if you need help, join the club. And then my fifth is water and sleep. And again, this could be at the top of the list because for your physical health. water and sleep is critical because
our bodies are on the circadian rhythm. It's based on the light when the sun comes up and goes down. So it's nature. We're part of nature and we want to stay on that natural cycle that nature is giving us. And if you aren't sleeping well, or if you're not getting enough water uh good healthy water with your all your minerals oh that's that's going to help with so many that's an easy fix for a lot of things that are going on
So those are the first two things that you can do that are so easy, but have a huge impact. So my invitation to you, my friend, is to come up with your own list, but make it easy. Make it functional. make it social make it doable and most importantly make it fun because if it's not fun you're not going to want to do it and then commit to it like your life depends on it because it does thank you for listening always always always love yourself first and have an amazing day
Hey, if you're enjoying these podcasts, then come and join my Mastering Midlife membership, where we do monthly challenges just like this, where you get inspiration, accountability, and a whole entire community of midlife women who have your back and are cheering you on every step of the way. All this and so much more for only $47 a month. I must be insane to just give it away like that. So join the community before I come to my senses. I'll drop the link in the show notes.